


they're pests destined to just be strays

by sidonay



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Minor Character Death, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 06:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidonay/pseuds/sidonay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They like to say that they own the streets and, in their own little way, they do. It's theirs. Every little corner, every brick, every crack between the dirty roads. If there was no one to dispute the fact, it didn't necessarily make it a lie. To them, it was true. Everything belonged to them. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they're pests destined to just be strays

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted [here](http://infoldednotes.livejournal.com/69995.html). written for [this prompt](http://corleones.livejournal.com/102182.html?thread=2080038#t2080038). this was supposed to take place in the 1950s but. but… I don't know. I left it kind of vague, completely by accident. mostly by accident. I don't know too much about the 50s and I was concerned with completely screwing it up so I tried to be as open-ended with the decade as I could be. and the way this goes kind of sounds like it's an origin story which, I guess, it is. Peter is a Perv (yes, with a capital "P") in this story and it was a total fluke. I was writing and then… it kind of happened. also, it's kind of implied that Wendy might be ~~a bit~~ under-age ("under-age" in the sense that I'm saying Peter is, at most, 18 and Wendy is 15 or 16). I got the names for the Lost Boys from [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Boys_\(Peter_Pan\)). I kind of ship the Lost Boys now in all kinds of ways thanks to this fic (I thought about listing the ships that I kind of subtly put in here next to the Peter/Wendy bit but the list would be crazy long and most of it is just implied). (as per usual: any and all mistakes, grammar-wise, are my fault and I will fix the ones I missed eventually. I tried to warn for everything I thought would be worth warning for, but if I forgot something please let me know and I will add other tags.)

They like to say that they own the streets and, in their own little way, they do. It's theirs. Every little corner, every brick, every crack between the dirty roads. If there was no one to dispute the fact, it didn't necessarily make it a lie. To them, it was true. Everything belonged to them. 

\- -

They meet in an abandoned warehouse at the end of a dead-end street. The building was dusty and full of rusty machinery, broken bottles and tools like hammers and screwdrivers from the people who used to work here, long gone and left for dead and now they've claimed it as their own, dragging chairs, tables and a couch from sidewalks and other people's houses (if everything does, indeed, belong to them, they figure that includes other people's things. Or, at least, that's what Peter says.) that they break into just because they can. It's home because they have nowhere else to go. 

"I've got an itch," Peter says one evening, as the gang sits around their rickety table, choking down alcohol hidden in innocuous pop bottles. Peter's got the best chair: a lavish, velvet and wood monstrosity, what was left of his father that he took out of retribution for being kicked out. None of them asked why his parents pushed him out the front door, disowned and banished, but they all heard the rumors (her name was Wendy and she was much, much too young). They wait for him to finish his thought but he says nothing else, leaning back, folding his arms behind his head and heaving a sigh, just waiting. 

"What kind of itch?" Somebody had to ask - somebody _always_ had to - and Nibs speaks up because he's the only one who Peter won't slap for breaking a silence. (Peter chose everybody's names, saying that since they have nowhere, they should separate themselves even further from who they used to be. It was a ridiculous ceremony, the naming of everyone, and he never explained why he chose what he did. They once asked why, why they got such absurd names, the kind that they were all too embarrassed to say out loud and why Peter got to keep his real one. Peter just shook his head and said "what makes you think Peter's my real name?"). He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, close to Peter's feet, not because he chose it but because the spot was chosen for him (Peter designated those for everybody too, where they would sit. It was important, he said, that everybody had their place). 

"We're too passive," Peter exhales.

"Passive? How so?" Curly, seated in a stiff-backed, square looking chair that sat directly across from Peter, questioned, his brows furrowing under his dark hair. 

"He means," Slightly spoke up from where he was curled up into an impossibly small red plastic child's chair (it had been punishment for doing exactly what he's doing now but he figures that things can't get much worse and, besides, it's a habit he just can't quit), "that we're being too submissive, that we're not trying hard enough to-"

"Yes, _Slightly_ ," Curly snaps, "I know what the word means, thank you." The twins, tucked away in a corner, start to laugh (Peter made them sit together, squished into a single chair that required their legs to overlap and it wasn't penance, Peter said he just liked to watch them and the way he had said it made their skin crawl but they didn't push the topic). 

"Fellas," Peter shouts and the room falls into an immediate hush, "My itch. Our passivity…" He's usually good at speeches but tonight he's having problems getting his words out and it's too out of character for anybody to pretend that it isn't happening. 

"You okay, boss," Tootles asks, picking his head up from where it had been resting on his arm, kicking his feet flat in shoes a size too big against the floor, sitting up just a little bit straighter, his sweater that he had borrowed off of from some kid pulling across his wide back, the stitching straining as he moved. 

"Shut up. I'm fine." (He obviously wasn't). "Our passivity may be keeping us from the papers and out of trouble but it's at the cost of respect. We should be feared. Breaking into folk's homes, stealing furniture and jewelry… no. No. We're done. I've got something big planned." 

"Big," Nibs says after a few seconds of letting the words wash over him, "How big?" 

"Wendy." Everyone stares at one another. "Wendy!" Peter pounds a fist against the arm of his chair and everybody jumps. "Her… her _father_ is moving. Taking her with him. He's taking her away. I won't allow it. You're gonna help me."

"…Help you what?" Curly recoils from the daggers that are shot his way, the fire in Peter's eyes that threatens to burn right through his face. 

"Wendy belongs to me," Peter growls, "She is mine. And I want her back. Tonight."

\- -

Slightly had suggested taking his car, the one he stole a few weeks ago, but Peter says they have to walk, that it'll be easier, in the end, to do it on their feet and they all agree because they have no other option. They crowd on the sidewalks, Peter leading the way, Nibs right behind him, shoulder brushing Peter's, keeping close just like he was commanded to, the rest of them in a semi-circle, the twins in the middle, left hand on one, the right on the other locked together with a pair of cuffs that only Peter has the key to, a situation they allowed themselves to get into one evening and Peter was so amused and god-knows-what-else that he told them they were staying like that except for when he decided otherwise. 

Nobody mentions the baseball bat Peter's currently clutching in his hand. 

They chat idly as they walk, as if nothing is wrong, as if this is just another one of their normal evenings. Slightly smokes his sweet cigarettes, blowing the smoke into Tootle's face because he knows how much he hates it, letting Curly antagonize him just so he can give him the perfectly thought out verbal smack-down later, the twins joining in, sharing one of the cigarettes they bummed from Slightly, cracking jokes that they only understood the punchline for, Nibs keeping silent, watching Peter closely like that was all that mattered (it was, pretty much, to him). 

Peter stops dead in front of a small house, the walkway neat and trimmed, the grass almost black against the sky, the windows bright and orange, a swing on the porch squeaking, back and forth, pushed by the wind. A tree in the front yard stands tall but weak, it's branches swaying as if beckoning them to come in, come in, come in.

"Is this it," Tootles whispers and Peter merely nods and starts moving forwards while the rest hang back because Peter was pretty insistent about having a plan but he had forgotten to tell them all what it was and now they were here and Peter was going going going and they were stuck. 

They all looked at Nibs. 

"Peter," Nibs called out, as quietly as possible, daring to reach out and wrap fingers around Peter's arm, pulling him back, spinning him around so they were face to face, noses practically touching, trying to get through to him for only a minute or two because Peter was definitely losing himself. The others take a step or two forward as if creating a shield. "If we do this, you gotta tell us what we have to do. You tell us and we'll do it." Peter's breathing like he's just run a mile or so and his muscles tense. Nibs can feel the bat pressing against the side of his knee like Peter's thinking about using it on _him_.

"Yeah," Peter says, "Yeah, okay. We're all going in. We'll ambush 'em. Nibs and I'll grab the girl, the rest of you keep her father occupied."

“No mother?" Slightly speaks up, somehow managing to sound entirely bored, like he's done this before but, heck, what do they know. Maybe he has. 

"Outta the picture." 

"Well then," Slightly says, "I guess we're going to go kidnap a girl." 

"Wendy," Peter clarifies and then, turning back towards the house, raising his arms above his head and taking his time meandering up the pathway, he shouts her name as if he wants the entire world to hear it.

A curtain pulls back and then quickly shuts. 

Peter starts to chuckle.

"I don't know about this," one of the twins says to the other, loud for the rest to hear but hushed just enough that Peter, already stuck too deep in his own head, didn't even know somebody else had spoken. They then turned to Nibs, who blinked slowly back at them. 

"The hell else do you want me to do," Nibs says finally, taking a step forward to speak to them, hands gesturing behind him, "I said what I said. He's not gonna budge. We either go along with it and make sure nobody dies or we walk away."

\- -

Peter doesn't knock - not like they expected him to, really - and instead takes a running head-start and kicks the front door off it's hinges, the wood splintering, banging against the wall and from deep inside the house there's a bang and a scream. 

\- -

They stumble out the way they came in.

Wendy is huddled between the twins, the chain of their handcuffs digging into the small of her back and her arms are thrown over her head, her blue dressing gown freckled with blood and she keeps her eyes locked on the back of Curly and Slightly, in the lead and moving faster than they had ever bothered to run before, worn out sneakers keeping up with polished shoes. They wait on the sidewalk, catching their breath and Wendy leans into one of the twins, peeking under his elbow towards the front door, her curled brown hair sticking to her sweaty mouth. 

He comes ambling into the open, thick red blood smeared across his shirt, slashed across his face, the baseball bat dragging along the concrete walkway behind him. It seems to take him hours to join them and, when he does, his eyes sparkle and he reaches out to touch Wendy's face but she recoils. It doesn't seem to bother him. The corners of his mouth twitch upwards, just a bit. 

"What about-" Slightly starts and Peter shakes his head, only once.

"Her _father_ …" He eyes Wendy and her lips quiver, "A shotgun. Meant for me," the spark disappeared, "He took it instead. S'okay. I don't think even his wife would be able to identify her husband. You know, if she was alive." A giggle escapes but it's leftover from his violence. 

"Nibs is dead?" Tootles asks it almost so quiet that it's nearly missed and Peter startles them by howling with laughter.

"He's not dead. The shot missed. Naw. He's just cleaning up. You thought- trust me. If they had killed Nibs, I'd'a done a lot worse than pounding that guy’s skulls in. A whole lot worse." He takes a deep breath, puffing his chest out, and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, it's like nothing much has happened, like they had just shared some soda and were thinking about heading back to their warehouse. "You guys wait here for Nibs," Peter says, reaching out, grasping a hand around Wendy's wrist and yanking her towards him and the twins nearly topple over from the force of the motion and they look like maybe they're thinking about trying to take her back. 

"What about you?"

"We have to get cleaned up. Can't walk around looking like this all night." 

Nobody asks where they're going. In the end, it's none of their business. 

\- - 

The police and newspapers have picked up on the murder and apparent kidnapping by the time the sun had risen and the rest of the boys don't find out about the note that Peter had made Nibs leave behind at the house until they had all crowded around the crumpled paper that Tootles had brought to their warehouse that morning.

" _This town is ours_ ," the note reads, the words typed and printed clean, and Slightly lowers his voice as he reads it aloud (they had all insisted, partly because a couple of them can't read, but mostly because, Curly sheepishly admits, Slightly "has a good reading kind of voice"), " _These streets are ours. These people are ours. And now you know the lengths we'll go to to keep it that way. Signed_ -"

"…The Lost Boys," says a voice a few feet away and they simultaneously lift their heads to see Peter standing in the doorway, a new green jacket pulled over his thin shoulders, Wendy standing next to him, her arms pulled close to her sides, a blue dress similar to the dressing gown hanging loose from her frail body. 

Peter grins.


End file.
